CVE-2026-42789

Published May 27, 2026

Last updated 9 days ago

CVSS high 7.0

Overview

Description
Improper Following of a Certificate's Chain of Trust vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_cert module) allows a non-CA certificate to be accepted as an intermediate issuer, enabling certificate chain forgery. In lib/public_key/src/pubkey_cert.erl, pubkey_cert:validate_extensions/7 contains two flaws that together allow a certificate with basicConstraints cA:false and no keyUsage extension to be used as an intermediate issuer in a chain passed to public_key:pkix_path_validation/3: the cA:false clause recurses into the remaining extensions without rejecting the certificate when it is in issuer position, and the keyUsage check only fires when the extension is present, so a certificate lacking keyUsage entirely bypasses the keyCertSign enforcement. Any party holding an end-entity certificate with basicConstraints cA:false and no keyUsage extension, issued by any CA in the victim's trust store, can use that certificate's private key to sign forged leaf certificates for arbitrary identities. public_key:pkix_path_validation/3 accepts the resulting chain, and by extension every TLS or mTLS endpoint built on the OTP ssl application that relies on the default verifier is affected, including server identity verification on the client side and client certificate verification on mTLS servers. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 before OTP 26.2.5.21, 27.3.4.12, 28.5.0.1, and 29.0.1 corresponding to public_key from 0.22 before 1.15.1.7, 1.17.1.3, 1.20.3.1, and 1.21.1.
Source
6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db
NVD status
Analyzed
Products
erlang\/otp

Risk scores

CVSS 4.0

Type
Secondary
Base score
7
Impact score
-
Exploitability score
-
Vector string
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:N/SC:H/SI:H/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
Severity
HIGH

CVSS 3.1

Type
Primary
Base score
4.8
Impact score
2.5
Exploitability score
2.2
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
Severity
MEDIUM

Weaknesses

6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db
CWE-295

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

Configurations

Related CVEs

  1. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability in Erlang/OTP ftp (ftp_internal module) allows FTP bounce attacks and SSRF via an unvalidated PASV response IP address. The ftp_internal:handle_ctrl_result/2 PASV handler (mode=passive, ipfamily=inet, ftp_extension=false) extracts the IP address from the server's 227 response and passes it directly to gen_tcp:connect/4 without validating it against the control connection peer address. The adjacent EPSV handlers correctly call peername(CSock) to derive the IP from the control connection, but the PASV handler does not. A malicious or compromised FTP server can redirect the client's data connection to an arbitrary internal host and port. On read operations (ftp:ls/1,2, ftp:nlist/1,2, ftp:recv/2,3), data from the redirected target is returned to the caller. On write operations (ftp:send/2,3, ftp:append/2,3), file content is sent to the redirected target. This enables SSRF against internal hosts, cloud metadata endpoints, and FTP bounce attacks against third-party hosts. The vulnerable path is the default configuration (mode=passive, ipfamily=inet, ftp_extension=false). RFC 2577 section 3 explicitly recommends validating the PASV response IP against the control connection peer. The ftp application is deprecated and scheduled for removal in OTP-30. This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/inets/src/ftp/ftp_internal.erl (inets 5.10.4 through 6.5, OTP 17.4 through 20.3) and lib/ftp/src/ftp_internal.erl (ftp 1.0 and later, OTP 21.0 and later). This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.4 before 29.0.2, 28.5.0.2 and 27.3.4.13 corresponding to inets from 5.10.4 before 7.0 and ftp from 1.0 before 1.2.6, 1.2.4.1 and 1.2.3.1.•CVE-2026-48858
  2. Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_cert and public_key modules) allows a DNS nameConstraints bypass via subject CommonName fallback in TLS hostname verification. Two flaws combine to allow a subordinate CA whose DNS nameConstraints are restricted (e.g. permitted;DNS:allowed.example.com) to issue a leaf certificate that an OTP TLS client accepts as a valid identity for an out-of-scope hostname (e.g. victim.example.com): First, pubkey_cert:validate_names/6 in lib/public_key/src/pubkey_cert.erl only checks SAN DNS entries against nameConstraints. Per RFC 5280, a permitted DNS subtree only restricts certificates that contain a DNS-typed name. A leaf with no subjectAltName therefore trivially satisfies any permitted;DNS:... constraint regardless of its subject commonName. Second, public_key:pkix_verify_hostname/3 in lib/public_key/src/public_key.erl falls back to the subject commonName when no subjectAltName is present, extracting id-at-commonName attributes as presented IDs and matching them against the reference hostname. The strict pkix_verify_hostname_match_fun(https) matcher does not suppress this fallback. The result is that path validation accepts a CN-only leaf under a DNS-constrained intermediate (no SAN means the nameConstraints are not triggered), and hostname verification then accepts it via the CN fallback. The bypass is reachable from stock ssl:connect with verify_peer, a trusted CA, SNI, and the canonical strict https hostname matcher. This issue affects OTP from OTP 19.3 before OTP 26.2.5.21, 27.3.4.12, 28.5.0.1, and 29.0.1 corresponding to public_key from 1.4 before 1.15.1.7, 1.17.1.3, 1.20.3.1, and 1.21.1.•CVE-2026-42790
  3. Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_ocsp module) allows forged OCSP responses signed with an expired responder certificate to be accepted as valid. OCSP response verification in pubkey_ocsp:verify_response/5 and pubkey_ocsp:is_authorized_responder/3 in lib/public_key/src/pubkey_ocsp.erl does not check the validity period (notBefore/notAfter) of the OCSP responder certificate. An attacker who has obtained the private key of an expired CA-designated OCSP responder certificate can forge OCSP responses that Erlang/OTP accepts as valid. This affects TLS clients using OCSP stapling via the ssl application: a malicious or compromised server can present a revoked TLS certificate together with a forged OCSP response signed by an expired responder key, and the client will accept the revoked certificate as valid. It also affects applications calling public_key:pkix_ocsp_validate/5 directly, where the impact depends on the use case — server-side client certificate validation using this API may allow authentication bypass with a revoked client certificate. This issue affects OTP from OTP 27.0 before OTP 27.3.4.12, 28.5.0.1, and 29.0.1 corresponding to public_key from 1.16 before 1.17.1.3, 1.20.3.1, and 1.21.1.•CVE-2026-42791
  4. Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal') vulnerability in Erlang OTP ssh (ssh_sftpd module) allows an authenticated SFTP user to modify file attributes outside the configured chroot directory. The SFTP daemon (ssh_sftpd) stores the raw, user-supplied path in file handles instead of the chroot-resolved path. When SSH_FXP_FSETSTAT is issued on such a handle, file attributes (permissions, ownership, timestamps) are modified on the real filesystem path, bypassing the root directory boundary entirely. Any authenticated SFTP user on a server configured with the root option can modify file attributes of files outside the intended chroot boundary. The prerequisite is that a target file must exist on the real filesystem at the same relative path. Note that this vulnerability only allows modification of file attributes; file contents cannot be read or altered through this attack vector. If the SSH daemon runs as root, this enables direct privilege escalation: an attacker can set the setuid bit on any binary, change ownership of sensitive files, or make system configuration world-writable. This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/ssh/src/ssh_sftpd.erl and program routines ssh_sftpd:do_open/4 and ssh_sftpd:handle_op/4. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 until OTP 28.4.3, 27.3.4.11, and 26.2.5.20 corresponding to ssh from 3.01 until 5.5.3, 5.2.11.7, and 5.1.4.15.•CVE-2026-32147
  5. Improper Certificate Validation vulnerability in Erlang OTP public_key (pubkey_ocsp module) allows OCSP designated-responder authorization bypass via missing signature verification. The OCSP response validation in public_key:pkix_ocsp_validate/5 does not verify that a CA-designated responder certificate was cryptographically signed by the issuing CA. Instead, it only checks that the responder certificate's issuer name matches the CA's subject name and that the certificate has the OCSPSigning extended key usage. An attacker who can intercept or control OCSP responses can create a self-signed certificate with a matching issuer name and the OCSPSigning EKU, and use it to forge OCSP responses that mark revoked certificates as valid. This affects SSL/TLS clients using OCSP stapling, which may accept connections to servers with revoked certificates, potentially transmitting sensitive data to compromised servers. Applications using the public_key:pkix_ocsp_validate/5 API directly are also affected, with impact depending on usage context. This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/public_key/src/pubkey_ocsp.erl and program routines pubkey_ocsp:is_authorized_responder/3. This issue affects OTP from OTP 27.0 until OTP 28.4.2 and 27.3.4.10 corresponding to public_key from 1.16 until 1.20.3 and 1.17.1.2, and ssl from 11.2 until 11.5.4 and 11.2.12.7.•CVE-2026-32144

References

Sources include official advisories and independent security research.